Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca hit out at the Club World Cup organizers and suggested the United States is not a suitable host for the competition after his team’s last-16 win over Benfica was disrupted by a two-hour weather delay.
“For me personally, it’s not football. It’s already seven, eight, nine games that they suspended here. I think it’s a joke,” he told reporters after Chelsea’s dramatic, extra time 4-1 win on Saturday in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“I can understand that for security reasons, you have to suspend the game. But if you suspend seven or eight games, that means that probably this is not the right place to do this competition.”
Six matches have now been suspended in five cities across the US due to adverse weather at this tournament, a year before the country is due to host the men’s World Cup. On Saturday, Chelsea’s match was suspended in the 85th minute when the Blues were 1-0 up thanks to Reece James’ brilliant, long-range free kick midway through the second half.
Enormous grey clouds gathered over the Bank of America Stadium as the players trudged off the field, bringing thunderstorms and a risk of lightning which delayed the match for one hour and 53 minutes.
When they returned to play the final minutes of the match, Benfica equalized through Ángel Di María’s penalty in the 95th minute to force extra time. But, instead of the momentum swinging towards the Portuguese club, Chelsea regrouped and scored three goals in less than 10 minutes to secure a thrilling win and its spot in the quarterfinals.
That such a match took more than four hours to play, however, dominated the press conference afterward.
“It’s not normal to suspend a game,” Maresca continued. “In a World Cup how many games have they suspended? Zero, probably. In a European (championship), how many games? Zero. We are here, two weeks, and they already suspend six, seven games. There is some problem, for me personally.”
FIFA, soccer’s global governing body which organizes the Club World Cup, has not responded to CNN’s request for comment. At the time of the delay, FIFA issued a statement saying that it was following “the established safety protocols.”
Maresca was quick to clarify he thought the Club World Cup was “a fantastic competition,” and that he was “talking as a manger” who had struggled to keep his players focused during the two-hour delay.
“When you are two hours inside and you’re trying to keep them in the game for two hours, they’re speaking with the family outside for safety reasons, they’re eating something, they’re playing, they’re laughing. How can you keep them two hours inside focused?”
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